Former government backed websites falsify Daniel Ioannisian’s statement

During Hrazdan mayor election campaign held in October, the “Fact Investigation Platform” received information that administrative resource was used in favor of one of the candidates Sevak Mikayelyan, who is MP Sasun Mikayelyan’s son.

According to the information, the director of Hrazdan secondary school No.5 Tigran Baklakyan involved the school staff members and students in Mikaelyan’s pre-election rally. To check the information Rafael Afrikyan, journalist of the fip.am website of the “Union of Informed Citizens” NGO, called Tigram Baklakyan and introducing himself as Sasun Mikayelyan’s assistant inquired how many people he was going to bring to the rally that day. In the telephone conversation, the recording of which was posted on fip.am website the same day, the director expressed willingness to involve 9th grade students.

A few days later, the Investigative Committee responded to the publication by inviting the UIC employee to an interrogation as a witness. It turned out, that a criminal case was initiated, but not upon the abuse of administrative resources, but against the journalist and the organization upon the violation of confidentiality of telephone conversations,

Aysor.am website asked Daniel Ioannisyan to comment on the incident and the latter expressed his indignation over the incident, stating that even last year when the organization published telephone conversations with 114 school principals working for the Republican Party, a criminal case was initiated against the principals, not the organization.

“The activities of the law-enforcement bodies related to Hrazdan elections have not changed compared to the old Armenia, it even has changed for the worse” said Ioannisyan.

The website, however, falsifying these words, published an article titled “Compared to the old Armenia, the situation has changed for the worse, reports Daniel Ioannisyan”, which doesn’t reflect the statements made in the original speech, and also misleads the reader.

It should be noted, that websites slaq.am, blognews.am and iravunk.com made publications with such a title.  The mentioned websites have ties with the former authorities and the Republican Party of Armenia. As to aysor.am, according to media reports, it is linked to the second president Robert Kocharyan’s office.